Chocolate hills ~ Philippines
"TOP TEN MUSTS IN THE PHILIPPINES:
1. blala
2.blala
3.blal
4. Chocolate hills
5.bla "
yeah you get the concept
"Hmm, Chocolate hills, sounds interesting right? We have to go!!!" I told Mollie and she accompanied me, even if she didn't feel like it. I thought this kind of trip was going to be done easily and once again me and my expectations were so wrong.
If you don't rent a motorbike and go there yourself you can also let someone else give you a lift on a motorbike the whole way there. Or, if you just feel like saving money and like to do things the local way you can follow our example and go to the chocolate hills from Panglao by: 1. jeepny 2. tricycle 3. Buss for 1.5 hours 4. hike up for a hill to get to get a great view over the actual hills. This is the face we both had in the beginning of the bussride, it was like the wildest rollercoaster and it was great fun.
But soon we realized that going with a rollercoaster bus on a very small country road maybe wasn't too safe. We also realized that we were paying three times more for the bus ride than the locals did which actually is something I would like to talk about because this happens all the time. When I'm writing this we have only been travelling in the Philipines for 10 days, but we have been fooled on money so any times already. It's pretty obvious that we're not from here which means we are tourists and that we have money. Of course. But the problem is that this isn't an honest system and I hate when I can't trust people. But, I guess that's how it is, like who wouldn't want to earn more money? So, if you go here, make sure you don't just settle for any price. Negociate and be stubborn and ask a neutral person what you usually pay for the activity or transport or whatever you plan to do.
Hiking this hill with our backpacks on and wearing flipflops became the workout for the day and HELL don't ever doubt if you can get sweaty in this country. (No, this has nothing to do with our body shape or condition...).
We climbed the hill, we climbed the stairs and we were finally up there.
Yeah, cool view, we said. Stayed for two minutes and then we had to re-do our transferring back to Bohol where we were supposed to take a ferry to Cebu. TWO MINUTES! Kids, don't go here. It's actually not worth it at all.
Ok, but what are these chocolate hills and why are they so famous? There are over 1000 hills shaped the same way which is a very odd geological phenomenal. The hills are covered in grass so during the dry season they all become brown which makes them look like chocholate. (?) Therefor the hills are called chocholate hills. Like, of course they're beautiful and it's a cool scenery up there, but really, all the travelling we did to get there just wasn't worth the 2 minutes of view.
When the journey back was done we got on that 2 hour ferry from Bohol to Cebu, spent the evening in a mall watching a movie at the cinemas and then catching the night bus to start the trip to Malapascua, the divers paradise. Can you even imagine how excited I was? I'll show you soon! Ida